Miserable Chord
by sarunotoki
Summary: First in my Want 'verse. Sometimes there's nothing that can make it better, and only so much you can do. Rated M for mention of potentially disturbing material. :Pre-RoyxEd:


Roy watched the boy over his desk and what could he do?

"– the train! I had to spend a whole day next to some old man that smelled like chimera shit left in the fucking sun and then _two_ days with this kid that wouldn't get out of my fucking face –"

Fullmetal's hair was pulled back into its customary braid but it was smoother today, thick silk ribbons woven into a decadent rope of gold. His bangs settled like liquid about his face, rippled and danced and remained unflustered by his pacing or the extravagant flailing of his limbs. The artificial glow from the single glaring bulb reached for him, tried to caress the strands into a flat blonde – was rejected in a flash of sunlight as he turned his head.

"– it wasn't even my fault, how was I supposed to know they think they're sacred, they're just birds and they're not even smart, you'd think they'd want a _smart_ bird to fucking worship –"

His skin was always kissed slightly with a tan, even in the winter, but it was nearing the end of summer, now, and he was dipped in warm caramel. Not quite the same hue as his hair; it was deeper, richer, more subtle than that – a thin wash of honey, a teasing lick of toffee, a light brush of ground hokey pokey.

"– didn't matter that the shit was using their kids, as long as it kept the fucking _birds_ happy, and they had the nerve to tell me that _I_ was a fucking sinner –"

The boy's eyes had always been startling, bright and intense and fascinating in the way they could look right through you or not see you at all. The eyes of a genius, of an animal, of a lost little boy or a tortured old man but they never turned away, never submitted, never lied, whatever his rather large mouth was saying at the time. Only sometimes it was too much like trying to look directly into twin suns; even if one _could_ hold that gaze long enough to see something, it would be too brilliant, too large, too incomprehensible to fathom.

"– took me half a day to get out of the damn jail and _then_ I had to chase him all the way to the next fucking town –"

Fullmetal blushed surprisingly easily for someone of his skin tone. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, now, as he ranted, eyes aflame and teeth bared and automail hand waving because he wasn't strong enough to uncurl the flesh one from its fist. Today, he'd been already halfway flushed when he stepped into the office, and even now there was a different quality to the glow. There was a smoothness to his skin, a heat to it beyond that of his ire or his usual allure, an unassuming beauty that radiated outward from his pores.

"– wasn't the birds that told him to do it, apparently, apparently he'd always known mutilating kids was his fucking calling and I dunno, maybe my fist was always destined to meet his sick fucking face –"

Yes, his eyes were always startling, but they were ever so slightly lidded today, a hint, a suggestion, a tease beyond that usual intensity. Whenever he glanced up he was looking through his lashes; it was such a blatant invitation that it was difficult to believe it was probably unconscious, unintended, unwitting.

"– would've been back a week ago but the _authorities_ are fucking useless and I had to travel two days _back_ to another shithole of a town and catch him _again_ –"

It wasn't hard to imagine the pattern of bruises on his skin, dabs and sweeps of ink faded on gilded canvas. The one on his wrist would be more hand shaped than the others, a bracelet of sick purple and yellow. Five small points of contact on his shoulder wouldn't be faded at all, a sinking, deep blue and still darkening by the day, tangible memory on his skin. There might be one on his thigh he didn't know he'd gotten, on his abdomen or arm or hip, mute testimony to something he'd never admit.

"– deliberately let idiots in so I have to run round fixing their messes and cleaning up their shit like I don't something more important I should be doing –"

He flopped gracelessly backward onto the couch and for a moment it was like he'd been guided there, pushed there, tossed there, sunk deep into a slouch and legs kicked out casually wide and eyelids lowering further to reveal only a line of hazy gold –

"Sick fucker." He muttered, thumping one booted heel against the floor. "I'm not – he was just. Sick."

There had been a lot of blood. Roy had known several days before Fullmetal even returned to East City and had expected the notably sparse report. There was no mention of the seven dead girls or the two that somehow managed to live, of the array the alchemist had fed them to, of the angels the man was 'freeing'.

How thoroughly had Fullmetal examined the bodies? Roy put a lot of faith in Fullmetal's youth, in Fullmetal's integrity, in the knowledge that if the girls had been clothed, Fullmetal would not have looked beyond the material. Roy was almost completely certain that the boy wouldn't have seen the crude stitching meant to ensure their purity. Almost completely certain, because the girls _had_ been clothed when Roy's people followed after Fullmetal's investigation, and it seemed just a little odd leave them in dirty dresses when the man had been aiming for perfection. Almost completely certain, because there was some strange catch in Fullmetal's voice when he said _sick_ that Roy had never heard.

Not that the specifics really mattered, except to that tight, hollow clutch of his insides that _twisted_ when he thought that the boy had seen something else his innocence simply couldn't recover from. The blood itself was enough to have warranted the over-washed hair, the scrubbed-raw skin, the too-heavy eyelids and over-bright eyes. It was enough to warrant a fifteen year old boy with young-old eyes, _Fullmetal_, sitting splayed on the couch like he didn't have the will to stand.

"There is the _small_ matter of the damage to the church, Fullmetal." The boy's spine straightened with a nearly audible snap and anger burnt away all traces of fatigue in less than a blink. "Surely you noticed your report was a bit short?"

Fullmetal was in no state to pick up on subtlety, really, but it was more the gnawing in Roy's own stomach that distracted him from coming up with anything clever.

The boy flailed, hollered, threw insults and accusations like he'd never been a breath from breaking. He was liquid metal and powdered gold and spitting flame and what could Roy do? Ease a little of the pressure but never too much, never enough, never _that_. Wait as Fullmetal found his heartbeat again, remembered his breath, felt the floor solid and unrelenting beneath his boots, but never show any sign. Listen, hear, know everything he didn't say but never make him speak the words.

And he could watch, as the boy stomped out, slammed the door hard enough to shut it twice, screeched "___fucking Colonel Bastard_" at his metal brother before he was even out of the office, as long as he never, never let him know that he could see.


End file.
